Making Money with Paco - Episode One: Hustling Watches

PacoPaco me administrator
edited August 2012 in Life
So lately, I have been pretty low on cash and I need to make some spending money. I have a road trip planned with some friends in around three months, so I need to get around ~150$ for gas and food. I recently had a pretty decent idea while I was sitting in math class. I heard some kids talking about how they need some new watches but don't want to shell out a lot of money for nice ones, one of the other kids talked about maybe buying some fake ones in China Town. I of course saw this as an opportunity, I made my way over, made some small talk, and eventually brought up the idea of watches.

After a while, I mentioned that I could probably get some cheap watches from "a guy I know". Just to make things clear, in my experiences, when it comes to selling things in high school, the sketchier you make it sound, the more kids are interested, so whenever I was asked where I was getting them, I just said "I know a guy.", they would get all excited thinking that they were involved in some serious shit, etc. etc.

After talking to these kids, I went to a computer, hopped on dealextreme.com, went to the Watches section and browsed for some cheap but decent looking watches. I saved pictures of all of the watches to my phone and bookmarked the pages. I then spent the next two days talking to the same kids, and eventually their friends, about the watches. I showed them the pictures, asked if they were interested in any of them, talked to them about "potential prices", all that jazz. After a few days I have 10 kids who definitely wanted a watch, a few kids that said maybe and 2 kids that each wanted 3 different watched. Of course I marked the price up to around 400% what I am paying and let some of them "talk me down" to around 200-300% markup. After I had my feedback I went back on DX, paid $101.05 for some Chinese watches and now all I have to do is wait. If everyone pays what they said they will, I'll be getting around 350-400$.

Seems like easy money.

Discuss?

Also, here are a few of the watches that I got.
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Comments

  • SpinsterSpinster Regular
    edited March 2012
    I miss high school, so much stuff and chicks I should have done.
  • PacoPaco me administrator
    edited March 2012
    Yea, High School is nice, but College should be better. High Schoolers are so immature, its intolerable sometimes. The college atmosphere seems to be generally more mature. Sadly, I don't think I can hustle college students as easily.
  • chippychippy <b style="color:pink;">Global Moderator</b>
    edited March 2012
    I used to have a good hustle at Uni many years ago that should work at college. In my shared digs we had an old oven. I used to do a bit of baking. Chocolate brownies actually. Cost about £4 to make a batch I could cut up into 40 squares and sell for about £20. I was making about 4 batches a week and could have sold more. 1/2 an hour making them and 1/2 an hour selling, so I was making about £16 an hour which in the late 70's wasn't bad money. The hustle was I made one batch on a weekend to share with the 9 other guys I shared the house with, they provided the ingredients and a good load of weed I ground up to put in. I would store the weed in a biscuit tin with a load of small paper bags. The bags were what I used to bag up the ordinary brownies I sold during the week to everyone else.
    The guys I lived with raved about how good the brownies were to everyone, and when I sold them I never said they had weed in them, just "wanna buy some brownies, nudge nudge wink wink." and of course the bags smelled of weed.
    You know in 3 years, I never got a single complaint LOL.
  • SpinsterSpinster Regular
    edited March 2012
    placebo? lol
  • SlartibartfastSlartibartfast Global Moderator -__-
    edited March 2012
    Perfume is another commodity you can do this with.

    I notice people at pubs and train/bus stations doing just what you described. Everyone thinks they're getting a good deal thinking it's all stolen.
  • DfgDfg Admin
    edited March 2012
    You can use Craighlist and start buying and selling stuff or picking up junk and then selling it for some money.
  • SpinsterSpinster Regular
    edited March 2012
    We changed the from shocks in some POS fiat today, was tempted to on sell the good one but there is many of those around so wouldn't be worth the hassle.
  • PacoPaco me administrator
    edited April 2012
    Update: Got the watches last week, sold three of them for $20 each. The major downside is, I didn't factor in my laziness. I lack the motivation to walk around being a salesman. Eh, I'll sell them eventually.
  • white88enochianwhite88enochian Regular
    edited April 2012
    can i have the link to the one u can see the gears threw
  • PacoPaco me administrator
    edited August 2012
    Update: High School ended months ago. I still have a bag of watches. I sold like, 3 total. 2 broke just from me carrying them around. College starts in two days, maybe I can sell them there.
  • SlartibartfastSlartibartfast Global Moderator -__-
    edited August 2012
    you fail ay everything you do paco. see if you fan sell them to those watch repair stores in the market.
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